


Song

by Ori_Cat



Category: Incarceron Series - Catherine Fisher
Genre: Death Threats, Gen, Kind of shippy, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 03:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13515684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ori_Cat/pseuds/Ori_Cat
Summary: In which Incarceron doesn't really understand humans, Sapphique is just done with everything, and I throw shade on theOne Thousand and One Nights.





	Song

It took Incarceron longer than usual to figure out what it was hearing that drew its attention. It switched one part of its focus away from the drunken fight it had been observing from under the eaves in some town, and drew itself back along the conduits until it found the source. Snapping the Eyes in that location open, it identified first movement, and then the movement resolved into focus to show one of the undifferentiated corridors, and one dark-haired man inside. 

Him. Of course it was him. That must have been why it had been flagged by that subroutine. 

Someone - it could have searched its banks for them but it didn’t really matter - had, some time ago, left a large pile of wooden crates in the corridor as a sort of makeshift barricade, which had evidently worked on Sapphique too, as, rather than scrambling over, he appeared to be hauling crates out of the pile and laying them against the walls instead, in order to lower the pile. And with the effort he was - it ran down quickly through its list of options: speaking, chanting, whispering- 

Fixed tone shifts. Sapphique was singing. 

“-and make his casement fine. And if I were the little bird, that twitters on the tree-“ 

It was interesting, the vast difference between human speaking and human singing. Humans rarely sang when alone, and Sapphique was no exception. And it was entirely possible that the resonance in the space was responsible, but it had not realized before quite the purity with which the man could sing. It sounded - highly contrasting with the dull thunks and raspings of the work. 

“-love for him, ’til he should harken me.” Wood scraped against wood. Sapphique shoved one crate into his preferred configuration with his heel, punctuating the break. “But since I am a maiden, I walk with-" 

Incarceron detached one of its mobile eyes from the ceiling and dropped it down, pulling out the focus so it could get closer. It left the other two where they had been, giving it three images overall. 

“-more red than roses-“ 

_“But you are no maiden,”_ it said, from behind his shoulder. 

The song died instantly as Sapphique flinched and spun around to face its Eye, spitting out a curse. “Could you _not_ do that?” 

Incarceron ignored the question. _“Why would you say such a lie, even when there is no-one to lie to?”_

“It’s a song,” Sapphique snapped. “It’s not supposed to be literal.” 

_“Then what is it supposed to be?”_

Sapphique sighed, and sank down to sit on one of the crates he had been moving. “Good question.” He didn’t answer it, of course. Men rarely did. It wondered what it would be like, having a life so full of questions that when faced with a new one you only acknowledged it as one and moved on. “Was there something you wanted?” 

_“I have a wager for you,”_ it began, and was gratified to fear and anger and frustration shift across the man’s face. He had not come out well in their previous, little to lose and less ability to play with. 

“What is it.” 

_“You,”_ it said, _“are going to tell me a story. It may be about whatever you will, whatever length you will, but when it is finished and you can find nothing more to say, then, I will kill you.”_ Possibly the fact that it had failed to follow through on this threat before undermined its credibility. Possibly the amount of blood Sapphique had shed anyway enhanced it. Nonetheless, it would have a while to decide whether it truly meant it - its thoughts ran faster than the thoughts of men, and it had more power to work them on. 

“Sure.” 

For everything, it was surprised by the lack of concern that surrounded the man. _“That is it?”_ it asked. _“You accept your death so readily?”_

Sapphique only looked at it. “You have not-“ he spread his hands “-in the past been inclined to relent when I beg. I figured I would save myself the trouble.” He shifted to lay down on the row he’d built, pulling his legs up to the same level, and he let his head fall back to face the ceiling. It snaked the eye down to float over above his body, the same configuration they’d found themselves in so many times before. The difference was, he was still whole this time. For now. “Is there anything in particular you want to hear about?” His voice slurred into forced casualness. 

_“Would that be fair?”_ The answer was no, but then again fair was a construct of the humans. It had no particular worries about being fair; it simply did not have anything it wished to hear him speak of either. _“You may begin whenever you wish.”_

Sapphique folded his arms behind his head, and gently bit down on his lower lip, thinking. “Once, there was a man,” he began, “and his name was Sapphique. And where he came from is a mystery, even to him, for so you see-“ 

Human pupils constricted when their owner was focussed on something far away, as opposed to something near. Whatever Sapphique was looking at, it was clearly much more distant than the bare metal of its wall above him, something only he could see. 

The thoughts of men could not be retrieved, as it could retrieve the thoughts of its subordinate Rats and Beetles and Flies - it had tried before. It still wished they could, because it wanted to crack open Sapphique’s head and pull out what he was thinking, what he was seeing, as he spoke his own life as though he were a stranger, not slowing or stumbling. Those stars he so frequently spoke of, embedded within his head? 

The red of its light was not enough to still be detectable once passed through his corneas, and so the space behind his eyes appeared purest black. Unlike Incarceron’s, which coruscated with electricity and the dark red of resistance-generated heat, with endless layers of statuses and routines and nested loops. Other parts of its focus that drove weather and air and light, that counted animals and plants and people, while this part stayed to listen to this man talk about himself to it. 

_“That is enough,”_ it broke in. _“Did you really think that this story would be enough? That you could convince me to spare you? You could tell your whole life story through to your dying day and it would be nothing compared to all the time, all the lives I have seen. Do you really think you matter?”_

Sapphique shut his eyes. It saw his chest rise and fall, once, and then he opened them again and swung his legs off the stack of crates, sitting upright once more. “Yes,” he said simply. 

_“Why? Your quest has led you to nothing, you have no friends, no family, no home and no name. If I were to slay you now no-one would know, and no-one would care. And when you die I will pull you apart and build something else just as mortal out of you, and you will be no more. The world does not care. The laws of physics do not care. You are nothing.”_

“And I should take your judgement over my own?” 

_“I created you. And I can destroy you, too, with no effort at all.”_

“Believe me, I know,” Sapphique said. He rose, stepped forwards, and reached out towards its Eye, and when the image twitched - only slightly, so evidently the touch was gentle - it knew he had made contact. “But I don’t think you’re going to.” 

_“Are you willing to pin all your hopes on that?”_ It pulled its voice down to be lower, shorter, more threatening, and it must have had success because it heard his heart stutter, although to his credit he did not outwardly flinch. They both knew threats were not close to the worst it could do. 

Something twitched around Sapphique’s mouth. “Yes. I am.” 

_“You are mad.”_

“I have faith.” 

_“As I said,”_ it replied, and Sapphique laughed, real and full, eyes crinkling at the sides - 

Someday - preferably sooner rather than later - it was going to have to kill him, whether or not it truly wanted to. Because of that one directive, the one with no situational application but universal: no one may leave. And - well, let it never be said that Incarceron was lacking in self-awareness. Sapphique would never stop searching, not until his own death; but more than that, given enough time, Incarceron thought, Sapphique might be able to talk it into defying even that one too. Into giving him his Freedom. 

Not out of mercy, of course. But, if it were being perfectly honest with itself - and it always was; humans may have been good at self-delusion but the Sapienti had never thought to hand that down to it - it just wanted to see what such a man would _do_ with it.


End file.
